NOVEL SIMPLE 37 – Who’s the real villain here?
It took them almost half an hour to sober up. Gou Dzing was tucked back into bed, despite his protests, with Gaam Yuk Ying sitting on the bed beside him. Cheng Baak-hap had found a seat, and Chan Bik stood behind her, absently massaging the other girl's shoulders.
"Chan Si-mui, you've gotten stronger." Gou Dzing smiled in her general direction. "Even without my vision, you're burning brightly."
"Lady Ling Gwong taught her." Cheng Baak-hap smirked. Chan Bik snorted.
"Oh, good, she finally threw aside her stubbornness and made you her disciple?"
"No," Cheng Baak-hap groaned. "They're both so stubborn. Lady Ling still insists that... that woman is her direct disciple. But she obviously wanted to teach Bik Bik. And Bik Bik was angry at being treated second-rate, so she kept saying she didn't want to learn from Lady Ling, even though she clearly did. So somehow with them both pretending it was all coincidence, Lady Ling would teach Bik Bik, and Bik Bik would learn from her."
"...Wow. How, exactly?"
"Fighting," Gaam Yuk Ying explained succinctly.
"Ah."
"Teem Djeung Baak still..." Chan Bik's words were lost to grumbles as she gnawed on a fingernail with nervous energy.
"Not for long," Gaam Yuk Ying said. Chan Bik dropped her hand in surprise.
"Gaam Si-hing, did you just praise me?"
Was that praise?
With someone so sparing with words and emotions as Gaam Yuk Ying, one could probably say so.
"How about you, Cheng Si-mui? How have you been?"
"Well, my research efforts have moved away from trying to decipher the demon language, or languages, perhaps, and on to finding a new form of communication. Demons have so many different morphologies, and many of them just aren't suited to the pronunciation of many Dzue words. I want to experiment with modifying words so that it's easier for the demons to pronounce. Now that I'm back, I'll have to see how it works in practice."
"I still don't understand how you're going to do that," Gou Dzing groaned.
"I'll try a few things. I was thinking I would start with showing them various pictures and objects and telling them the names they've been given in this experimental language."
"So we'll have to learn a new language too?"
"It's very similar to Dzue in many ways. Just modified to match the demons' morphology, as I said."
"Glad it's you and not me working on this."
"I think it's really exciting though?"
"My point exactly."
"What happened to you, Gou Si-hing?"
"I overdid the Dragon Eyes. I should be okay in a si."
"Did that ever happen to you, Gaam Si-hing?" Chan Bik asked nervously. She unconsciously rubbed her eyes, which had already begun to develop shining pink sparks in the dark brown of her irises.
"No."
"Yuk Ying's too cool for that," Gou Dzing laughed.
"Metal attribute. Inherently more attuned with sight."
"Is that so? I wish Master had told me that. What are the others?"
"Earth, touch. Fire, taste. Wood, smell. Water, hearing."
"No wonder you keep saying the food was too salty, Bik Bik," Cheng Baak-hap observed. "Your sense of taste must be getting very sensitive."
"You two seem oddly affectionate," Gou Dzing said innocently. "Why is that, I wonder?"
"None of your business," Chan Bik said primly.
"Well, you see," Cheng Baak-hap began slyly, "one night Bik Bik flung herself into my arms and-"
"Stop it! Stop it, you fox demon!"
"Oh, Bik Bik, call me what you usually call me."
While the women bickered, Gou Dzing gently squeezed Gaam Yuk Ying's hand. "Are you okay?"
"... still angry. That woman, I'll get her."
There was nothing more to say. Eventually, Wong Tang and Gong Lau Yan reappeared, a little battered but otherwise unharmed, but disturbed to discovered Teem Djeung Baak had sneaked into camp.
"This place..." Wong Tang scuffed her boot against the dry soil, looking intensely uncomfortable. Since her initial admission that her abilities were severely hampered in this strange dimension, she had hidden any signs of discomfort, but it was clear on her face now. She quickly put this to one side, saying, "That woman seems to be getting stronger."
"How?" Chan Bik demanded. "Lady Ling keeps saying she doesn't have the best aptitude for Fire, yet she keeps getting away from me. She burnt Gaam Si-hing last time, too. What's going on?"
"She could be burning her djing, her life-force," Gong Lau Yan speculated. "She's crazy enough. It's incredibly potent, but limited. Once you run out of djing, you're dead."
"She would do that," Cheng Baak-hap muttered. "I wonder why..."
"So I need to become stronger than a crazy woman who's burning her life away? That's insane."
"Yep," said Gong Lau Yan cheerfully.
"Yes," Wong Tang agreed, extracting her pipe and puffing on it.
"We need to become stronger," Gou Dzing rectified.
Gaam Yuk Ying grunted.
Cheng Baak-hap patted Chan Bik's hand.
The Grandmaster checked Gou Dzing's eyes, pronounced them to be healed enough, then dragged him away to the where the troops were conducting first aid on the minor injuries that had been sustained. Gong Lau Yan and Cheng Baak-hap headed off to try and speak with the demons, and Gaam Yuk Ying and Chan Bik retreated outside of the camp to spar.
Ling Gwong had eventually given up on making Chan Bik learn how to fight with knives and daggers, instead teaching (but not really) her unarmed combat. The light she could fire from her fingertips was powerful enough to burn a neat hole through a tree trunk, or a granite boulder, and she kept getting faster and more accurate.
Gaam Bing had gruffly told Gaam Yuk Ying to stop carrying around scrap bits of metal (although everyone knew in reality that it was Ling Gwong who had complained that this was unbefitting the dignity of a direct disciple of the Ng Dzeung), so in addition to Lo Fu Ngaa and Yiu Tsing, he now had a set of metal accessories – a simple ring on each hand (he refused anymore, saying they made his fingers feel trapped), long and thin earrings that dangled from his earlobes, a plain band on his right wrist, and a metal pin and clasp to hold his hair. Everything was plain and utilitarian, despite Ling Gwong's furiously whispered objections.
They exchanged blows, Chan Bik almost as fast as Gaam Yuk Ying so that an ordinary bystander would only see a series of blurs. She had learnt to temporarily form light into a solid point, and she used these to gain footholds for higher ground as they took to the air, Gaam Yuk Ying zipping easily on Yiu Tsing while fending off her attacks with Lo Fu Ngaa.
Reinforcing her hands with her hei, Chan Bik flicked aside the flying darts her senior brother sent zipping towards her, reshaped from his earrings and bracelet. She ducked under Lo Fu Ngaa, and punched for Gaam Yuk Ying's ribs under his outstretched arm. Her fist slammed painfully into a metal plate; Gaam Yuk Ying had transformed the clasp in his hair into a protective metal square, but now his long hair was loose. He jumped down from Yiu Tsing with a frown, rapidly retying his hair as he reached the ground.
Chan Bik landed behind him, her fists primed again to land on his exposed back. Gaam Yuk Ying managed to twist enough so that her fist grazed him, the momentum of his turn lending weight to Lo Fu Ngaa chopping towards her neck. She dodged sideways, one fist high to protect her head, the other pushing away his arm.
Yiu Tsing slammed into her.
The blade spun around Gaam Yuk Ying while Chan Bik writhed on the ground her ear ringing from where the flat of the blade had slapped it. Lo Fu Ngaa joined it a moment later, so Chan Bik looked up to find her senior brother observing her with two swords casually circling him.
"Better," he said.
"Again."
"Focus."
That was the problem. When she could focus, Chan Bik was exceedingly deadly. Several times already, Gaam Yuk Ying had ended up back in the medical wards, being tended for burns and other wounds, whilst Dzik Suet Yi-sang spat blood in anger and tried unsuccessfully to convince them that someone who was still recovering from life-threatening injuries should not be running around adding to them.
When Chan Bik couldn't focus, it was easy to take advantage of the fact.
And it seemed today was not the day. Each round found her on the ground, panting and shaking.
"Again."
"Again."
"Again."
"Enough," Gaam Yuk Ying said.
Chan Bik gritted her teeth, but did not argue.
"What's wrong?"
"Do you think we're doing the right thing, Si-hing?"
"Meaning?"
"Trying to befriend and understand the demons. What if we're wasting our time, and we should just kill them all? What is they turn out to be evil?"
"Evil?"
Chan Bik flopped down onto her back, heedless of the dust settling on her. "Ha... I sound like a child. I know I am, really. I don't... really believe there's such a thing as an evil person. Only evil actions."
Gaam Yuk Ying sat down next to her.
"What would you do, Si-hing? If you had a situation where there was a demon in front of you... not one who was attacking you... not like what happened in Sek'suen... but maybe they could attack you, you don't know, so you had to make a decision to let them go or to kill them, what would you do?"
Gaam Yuk Ying's eyelids were lowered so far it almost seemed like his eyes were closed.
"Kill."
"Why?"
"That's... what they wanted."
"... what?"
Months ago – as Gaam Yuk Ying was searching up and down the country for Teem Djeung Baak, he took a detour towards the village where he had killed a demon and knocked out another. The villagers had dragged away the unconscious one, and left the dead one where it lay.
Or they had, when Gaam Yuk Ying had last been there.
When he arrived, the decaying corpse of the demon was nailed high in a tree.
Someone had mockingly painted it, giving it red lips, purple eyelids, the character 死 on its stomach. The eyes were gone, and there was an unspeakable mess between its legs. Had this been done by scavenging animals, or...?
Gaam Yuk Ying frowned, and the iron nails holding the corpse aloft shivered and sprang from the wood. He caught the body as it fell, wrinkling his nose at the smell, but carried it deep into the woods where there was no evidence of human traffic. Laboriously, he dug a hole in the soft loam using Lo Fu Ngaa, and buried the body there, wrapped in his outer robe.
He tucked the iron nails in his sleeve.
Retracing his steps, he came back to the road to the village, but stayed under the tree cover, following the track until the first houses came into view. It was night time, the only sounds the occasional lowing of livestock.
Fast and soundless, he moved from building to building, scanning the interiors rapidly.
Not here. Not there.
Here.
"What happened, Si-hing?"
Gaam Yuk Ying looked away. "Found them. They asked me to kill them."
"Not to set them free?"
"... same thing."
Chan Bik blinked. Superimposed over the Gaam Yuk Ying there with her, was another Gaam Yuk Ying. His hair was tied with a cloth ribbon, and there was no Yiu Tsing in his hand, only Lo Fu Ngaa.
A vague impression of a demon kneeled before him.
Chan Bik clutched her mouth and stomach simultaneously at the sight.
Lo Fu Ngaa cut through the bindings holding the demon easily. Expressionlessly, Gaam Yuk Ying lifted the demon, preparing to carry it out. For some reason, he paused. Perhaps he heard something that Chan Bik could not, she could only watch as he crouched down again.
The demon tremblingly tapped the hilt of Lo Fu Ngaa.
Gaam Yuk Ying laid the demon down, and raised his dou.
They locked eyes, briefly, then the demon closed theirs.
Chan Bik's eyes prickled.
And the demon's head was neatly severed between one blink and the next.